Galerie Arnaud Lefebvre
 10 rue des Beaux-Arts 75006 Paris
Tél. +33 (0)1 43 54 55 23
+33 (0)6 81 33 46 94
mardi-samedi: 10h30-12h30 / 14h30-18h30
galeriearnaudlefebvre@gmail.com

POSSESSION 

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Eying the foot-long wing feather
wasting on the gravel
Might make a fine quill pen
if I learn how to sharpen it … in which case
I’ll with flourish write my will. Or something.

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I rinse and dry it, stand it in a blue glass
Mason jar, glowing on the window sill,
but a pal whines I can be fined by the Fed
100K for “anything eagle” in possession.

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So I slide it into an inside jacket pocket,
trek to the RR bridge, a mile inland from the estuary.
Sun-ridden day, I’ll let it go because I cannot fly.
To be borne again, exquisitely, on water.

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I squint upstream toward the immaculately
capped Cascade Range. And down through
the river bed, mazed with fractured trees.
No fishermen. Not a soul on the bridge.
I think, “I am not here.”

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It arrows down, surfaces and sails,
unfazed, bowsprit first, over the horizon.

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Paul Nelson